


Time Joules

by SecurityCat



Category: DC Extended Universe, DCU, DCU (Comics), Injustice: Gods Among Us, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Suicide Squad (2016), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mutants, Multi, Original Character(s), POC!protagonist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-05-15 19:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14796587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecurityCat/pseuds/SecurityCat
Summary: The Punisher of Earth-49021 misuses the Time stone and causes Earth-99999 and Earth 52.1 of the multiverse to begin to collide.





	1. Power

**Author's Note:**

> I'm excited for this and will probably be fairly lax on spelling and grammar and continuity this first time around, how far I get before I do a complete revision edit remains to be seen. In any case, please let me know you enjoy it and want to see more!

Nadine Giuliani set down her copy of Dune to take a sip of the lukewarm coffee on her desk before getting back to her research. The lab lights glared, some of them completely off as this block often experiences rolling blackouts and hadn’t been inspected in years. Thankfully, the tools she needed were still intact and she had been allowed to import some of the equipment from her usual laboratory. The woman turned her attention to the subject of her research: The Infinity Gauntlet.  
The severed hand of Thanos was still rotting inside of the metal casing and the orange stone smashed to pieces. Her own hands washed and gloved, Nadine began extracting tissue, skin, and bone samples and preserving them with stabilizers and storing them into the refrigerated drawer. She saved the dissection of this for later, moving on to the main event which was the infinity stones. The doctor knew the guidelines 1) do not under any circumstances attempt to hold the stones and 2) do not allow anyone to discover the stones, and in the event that they do, Nadine was given permission, as her super-persona, to dispose of them as quietly as possible.  
She grabbed a pair of heavy-duty pliers and carefully extracted the first stone, embedded in the joint of the thumb piece. She started here as she knew that Doctor Strange character would have enough resources to find it soon. The stone glowed a mysterious and hypnotizing color, a living jade green. It pulsed and throbbed the closer it got to her fingers and her face; interesting. The woman set the stone into the containment box and turned on the collective footage of Doctor Strange, the Vision, and Thanos, the only known wielders of the gems. It was difficult to grasp the thought that the human man with a red cape performing sorcery and dueling aliens used to be the richest, most successful physician in America some three years ago. An hour and a half ago of fast forwarding through YouTube footage, and recorded live feeds, and various news reports, and Nadine had a scattering of papers with notes on the abilities of the Gauntlet, the green stone in particular.  
Some of her notes were mere speculation, such as the ability to see into the future to predict the movements of opponents, and she went so far as to dedicate six pages of slapdash scotch tape to a brainstorming web on the phenomenon, debating whether the stone gave its user the ability to access a preexisting alternate timeline in the multiverse, or simply creating a new one altogether. Her hair began to frizz with the humidity she had begun to emanate, and Nadine slipped out of the holey, lightly stained coat and wrapped a pocket bandana around her hairline to absorb as much sweat as possible. She was only mildly annoyed that she hadn’t grabbed the powder blue one, so the strawberry and grape jelly color didn’t really match her sweater.  
As soon as she flipped on the air conditioning, more lights snapped off and almost plunged her into total darkness, save for three fluorescent lights, one flickering madly and clinging to its usefulness. The air vents didn’t even work, leaving the woman overheated and in a permanently darker room. As there was no point in wasting any more time fussing with the comfort level of the lab, Nadine simply returned to her desk and reviewed her notes thus far. Looking at the paused image of a fight in New York, it was hard to grasp the thought that this man performing sorcery and dueling aliens used to be the richest, most successful physician in America three years prior.  
Nadine found her gaze drifting back to the green stone, temptation raising the hair on her arms and neck and chilling her spine.  
“Joules,” she mockingly whispered to herself as she reclined in her seat, “don’t you want to try it? Don’t you want to see it for yourself?”  
The woman picked herself up from the desk and knocked a few papers to the floor, easily stepping over the flimsy mess to make a new pot of coffee. Chewing thoughtfully on the granola bar from her pocket, her eyes drifted back to the stone and to the frozen image of the red-caped sorcerer on the monitor. I’d give my right arm just to get my hands on Strange and learn all of his secrets, she thought. He was a drooling womanizer before the accident, maybe a little skin and some careful words will get me Sorcerer powers. Nadine used the cordless mouse to operate the computer from across the room, turning the monitor to play the local news channel.  
Even this late at night, the channel was replaying the official warning issued by the Avengers. There on the screen was the Ironman—Tony Stark urging the public to be aware that the infinity gauntlet could not be used by natural humans and was dangerous to even powerful mutants like Charles Xavier. He directed anyone who found the weapon to call the police or the designated Avengers phone number. The clip cut to news anchors Prisha Dhawan, Jeff Lindsay, and Marjorie Leeks laughing about the recorded prank calls that had been posted on the internet. Three of those calls had even sent small groups of the Avengers on wild goose chases. Changing the channel to E!, the four fancily dressed people were gossiping about fashion of the Avengers. Nadine’s eyes began to drift shut and her body relaxed into the countertop when the TV people began to discuss the oddity of the red-caped Sorcerer and his necklace.  
“I don’t know about you, Jill, but I feel like the whole ensemble falls apart with that jewelry,” the bald, dark-skinned man in the form-fitting suit commented.  
“I know! It’s exquisite, just a magnificent accent to those mustard yellow gloves. I’m loving those primary colors, B.” Nadine paused the video to scrutinize object further. Of course, she knew Dr. Strange was capable of wielding the infinity stone, but the developing theme of jewelry and armor was intriguing.  
She whipped out her shield issued mobile phone and fired off two texts, one to ‘Human Sparkler’ and the other to ‘Wakanda Prime.’ While waiting for responses, she collected the tape recorder from the pocket of her coat and pressed the orange button to begin the recording.  
“This is doctor Nadine Giuliani speaking on record the findings on test subject 6A-JSH…”


	2. Weakness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preparing the stone for a test run ends badly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLOOOOOO. I like writing so I'm spreading my wings and practicing. Nadine is an African-American woman with 3C to 4A type curl (hair related). No, she is not Wakandan, but she is on very good terms with their Queen.

“…This is doctor Nadine Giuliani speaking on record the findings on test subject 6A-JSH. The time is currently 8.52 pm on a Thursday, August 26th, 2018. Night has been to fall on the Detroit area.” She smiled to herself knowing she would be the only one to ever listen to this. “After reviewing footage of a Doctor Strange it has come to the attention of my lizard brain that power Is incredibly sexy and even sexier when you could be the one in control.”   
As she continued to talk she began shuffling and sketching diagrams of the gauntlet to catalog the placement of the gems. “It appears the green stone gives the wearer the ability to manipulate time. The good doctor sorcerer has demonstrated the ability to reverse and advance the age of individual objects or a group of objects, as well as slowing and even pausing movement. As confirmed in the 3rd street Shawarma security footage, a slow-moving fist still carried the same velocity and force as Thor learned. While I don’t particularly like that toe-headed grape looking mother fucker, watching the God of Thunder crash through several walls when he could have easily sidestepped the move was pretty fucking hilarious.”   
The ding from the computer signaled an email from ‘Human Sparkler’. After a quick scan, she determined the mp4 file safe to view. The video was of an African-British man in green robes similar to the ones of Dr. Strange, tied to a chair and being interrogated by SHIELD mutants. The time stamp was labeled for six minutes ago. His eyes were glazed over, with no visible injuries except a pinprick trail of blood that started at the centers of his forehead. This was the work of ‘Human Sparkler’—Nadine’s nickname for Agent Blaire. The revelation was confirmed when the mutant began strobing light from her body and causing the man to writhe and muffle his own screams until she finished her malicious dance with a singular beam of light shining over the pinprick and causing more blood and screams to flow from him.   
The man, who Agent Coulson identified as Karl Mordo, began to unveil some juicy details behind the unusual events in Hong Kong, New York, and London. Something about a madman who wanted to bring something called Dormammu into the world that would create eternal darkness yadda, yadda, yadda—but then he began to reveal information about the stone and the necklace, what he called The Eye of Agamotto. A boring history lesson later, and he revealed that the necklace could be wielded by humans with extraordinary powers and the knowledge and sorcery to back it up. He followed the revelation very quickly spouting about the dangers of such power. He was still shouting and practically foaming at the mouth when she muted the video.   
Happy with their results, Nadine replied to the email with a winking face emoji to spite agent Raven. She then unpaused the tape recording and transcript her shorthand into more legible writing. “It seems the mutant division of SHIELD excels at interrogations—shocking. The man they worked over today had very useful information about the time stone and what he called the Eye of Agamotto. He came loaded with warnings, citing unstable dimensional openings, time loops, spatial paradoxes, the collapse of the universe and the multiverse as we know it blah. Blah. Blah.”   
Nadine’s fingers flew across the keyboard to beginning coding a three-dimensional device for the 3D printer to model. She settled into the cockeyed school chair and began cleaning the pocket-sized Smith & Wesson she kept in her bra holster. Hours later, a piing alerted her to a text from Queen Shuri, nicknamed ‘Wakanda Prime’ in Nadine’s phone. ‘You’re packge has arrived’ it read. Just then, there was a knock on the window and Nadine allowed the catlike bot to climb inside. Purple light hummed and pulsed beneath the sleek black metal, and the cat left as soon as it received its goodbye pet. ‘Your*’ Nadine texted back and promptly received a middle finger emoji. Nadine dragged and unpacked the 6 pounds of moldable vibranium like a fucking Christmas present.   
The first light of dawn began to rise over the rundown urban neighborhood stood over her new invention. The time stone had reacted mildly to being embedded into the vibranium device—a necklace—a make-shift replacement for the magic imbued material used by Agamotto. Just holding the chain in her hand, she could already feel the power literally pulsing warmly through the metal. Nadine wasted no more time—she had to know.  
Pain and pure energy exploded through every nerve in her body and a thousand and one visions passed through her head. She was screaming, her nerves and flesh on fire as her bones vibrated and suddenly she was holding her own hand. A young girl in pink pigtails and yellow school uniform, a young Nadine from her school days. The young girl was holding the hand of a Nadine on the night of her senior prom, wearing the stark blue dress, they were in as much pain as she was, but the pain lessened, and the further she reached out—across her own timeline and further, into alternate universes—the more stable she became. And from the green flames that swam in her eyes and beneath her skin she saw a face looking back at her. And as they looked at each other, the universe fell away between them the green enveloped them and turned dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Colloquialism: in black sub-culture, it is common to categorize other black people as light skins and dark skins. I myself am a light skin (VERY light skinned, I need to go outside more), while Nadine is very much in between the two, her skin tone is kind of the dishwater blond of the blond vs brunet world. I'll post as often as I can and edit the tags as more characters, relationships, and situations occur.


	3. Running in the Wrong Circles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A confused Nadine wanders Hell's Kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Future chapters may be intentionally shorter, but more likely than not they will be whatever length I decide is sufficient for a scene.

The perplexing hum of an overhead street light coupled with the neon orange spots masked by heavy lids made Nadine’s nausea and migraine that much more intense. Swimming exponentially, the first coherent thought to cross her mind was: how did I get here? The wet concrete she lay on caused pins and needles feeling throughout her back and calves, soaking into her sweater and-more irritatingly-into her hair. So much for those four hours of careful treatment last morning, she thought bitterly. Just as she moved her loose limbs to lift her from the puddle, a wet drop broke on her nose and splattered over her eyelids and cheeks, followed by the pitter patter of the light rain.  
“Fucking A,” she hissed as she opened her skin on the broken glass beneath her. Detroit was doing a lot better thanks to the new clean-up crews, but they must have been missing a few alleys because that is where the woman found herself. The creeping rats scurried dauntlessly around the black shadows: it should have been nearly morning, she thought, so why was it still pitch black?  
The effort to stand was made all the more difficult without the use of her hands, still littered with cuts. Stepping out onto the streets, she found she could not for the life of her figure out where she was, but since the stars were covered in a light polluted smog bank, her first assumption was home, in New York. Her temples throbbed harder and she delicately plucked the jagged glass from her palms while walking down the street until she saw something she recognized. Through her peripherals, she saw shadows creep and follow but none approached her, so she did not attempt to shake them off. Definitely New York, she thought as she stumbled across a hospital. ‘METRO’ glowed in bright lights on all sides of the building. New York, especially criminal hot spots like Hell’s Kitchen, had as many hospital clinics as Seattle had Starbucks.  
Stepping inside, Nadine grunted at the sight of dozens of groaning, impatient people stuffed into the waiting room. Some bled, some coughed and struggled to breathe, and two pregnant women had clearly become friends in their long wait for medical care. The elder black woman held the 20-something white woman by the arm and told her stories as the younger practiced breathing. A nurse introduced herself as Claire and took the laboring woman to the maternity ward, the first woman following because the 20-something refused to go without her.  
Nadine walked out and to the nearest convenience store for booze, clean bandages, and sewing needles. The rain had become a trickle, stopping and starting lightly. The shop clerk was brunet and had a wide mouth and an aura of boredom pouring from him: his tag read ‘Peter.’ Peter seemed concerned when he noticed the cuts and kindly directed her to the Metro hospital but only received a sarcastic grin before she swiped the purchased items into a bag and sat at a nearby bus stop. She squeezed down hard around the clean rags, taking a moment to regain her bearings. She still possessed the time stone and could feel it pulsing with warmth against the hollow of her throat. The broad collar jewelry was devoid of elaborate decoration, only black vibranium ribbed with bronze colored tabs like that of the teeth of a thumb piano. Heat gripped her forehead and back followed by a wave of cold that caused her vision to turn dark. In the darkness, the Green one returned, its eyes on her and its mouth agape before the rusted shield of the bus stop drifted back into her vision.  
_I’m in New York. The stone activated, and now I am in a different place. Maybe—just maybe—I could be in a different time as well. After all, the stone’s powers seemed to be limited to the manipulation of time, not space. _She thought the words, clear and legible like print writing in her mind’s eye, yet she did not believe them. She had a hideout she barely used somewhere in the city between an adult video store and a strip club; it was a condemned apartment complex.__  
Mentally, she kicked herself knowing it would be very bad if she ran into herself, and the risk of knowing she might run into herself did not bode well for the universe. Nadine sneezed as some dirty water slid under her nose from her wilding hair, and she began the process of stitching the deeper cuts closed on her hands. She only took a few swigs of the scotch, mindful that her nondominant hand was already unsteady.  
“HEY,” someone shouted, “you. In the blue pullover!”  
A small group of people approached the bus stop, stumbling drunkenly over their feet and giggling manically. Nadine recognized the blonde as Patricia Walker, but scoured her memory for the other two and came up empty. A black haired white woman and a black man with dreads and a fade. The man sauntered behind them looking unsure, and the woman in the leather jacket did not seem to have a single problem dragging Trish Walker around.  
“You’re drunk, you need help,” said the incredibly intoxicated talk show host. “Jess…”  
“Trish stop bothering strangers, come on, we’re almost to the next bar, it’s just around the block—”  
“Nnno,” Trish sounded like a petulant child, “nnno more bar ‘til she’s got all her stitches in.”  
Nadine shrugged, “don’t I get a say?”  
“Apparently not,” the man sighed before kneeling down and opening his palm. “I’m Malcolm, by the way.”  
The group didn’t seem like a threat, so she let Malcolm takes care of her dominant hand only. Jess and Trish swayed and chattered with each other after a few unsuccessful attempts at learning the woman’s name. The way Jess smiled at Trish when she wasn’t looking, Nadine couldn’t decide if they were girlfriends or just really close. The sting in her hand rose to an irritating buzz that traveled up to her elbow, and as the last clumsy stitch was completed she thanked Malcolm with a dispassion that made him stand, bow, and direct the swaying women away without further questioning. He did, however, hand her the windbreaker he wasn’t wearing and insisted she could give it back if she ever saw him again. They disappeared back into the night as it began to pour again, but Malcolm did not return to take the jacket back, only opened the floral umbrella from Trish’s oversized purse.  
Nadine finished patching herself up in half the time it would have taken her by herself, and began walking as she wrapped her cuts. She was torn from having to leave the scotch behind but hoped some penniless drunk would find it and be grateful. There were few places she knew in Hell’s Kitchen a fewer people, so she tried the one least likely to cause a massive stir. She gingerly buzzed into the correct apartment and waited for someone to answer.  
“Hello,” the woman sounded half asleep.  
“Hi! I’m looking for Tyrone Johnson.”  
The static disappeared and it felt like a millennia before she snapped “and you are?”  
“Doctor Giuliani. I work for SHIELD.”  
The woman scoffed, but her voice was replaced with a baritone stuttering. “I d-don’t know any Gi-g… anyone by that name. Please tell Director Fury—or whoever sent you—I d-d-… ain’t got nothing for him.”  
A lost cause, Nadine flipped the hood of the borrowed coat and stormed off. Stuffing her loose fists in her pockets, she crossed a couple blocks and located Josie’s bar, where she found an empty seat at the bar and ordered a lemon water. The mounted clock in the joint read 12: 02 AM, making instantaneous teleportation an impossible reason for how she ended up miles from Detroit. She doubted she would have been unconscious for an entire day, as she probably would have woken up in a hospital, or a morgue— or worse.  
“Hey Josie, got a phone I can borrow?” She took it outside and dialed every number of every SHIELD agent she had memorized, cursing herself for leaving her phone on the lab table. Through voicemail and occasional angry shouting, the woman discovered that, for some reason, most of the numbers took her to laundromats, massage parlors, and car dealers in Ontario. Returning the phone to Josie, Nadine stepped back into the streets with a rising ire. Things just went from bad to worse and were exacerbated by the pounding in her head and the trembling of her mangled hands. Her legs shook and she slumped against a door near her, sliding to the ground and passing out.  
...   
“Excuse me.” Nadine felt a gentle kick to her knee and woke with a start. She nearly ripped the crusting thread in her hands from lifting her fists up in defense. The man who had woken her stumbled back and hid behind his briefcase. When she relaxed, so did he, and he cleared his throat. “Uh, miss. This is a private office. If you’d like a place to sleep, I can give you the address of a battered women’s shelter?”  
“No,” Nadine gasped. “Please, he’ll find me…” She held out her hands to show him the bandages and was pleasantly surprised to find him puff his chest.  
“Okay, you can sleep in the office while I work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why? Because I'm fairly familiar with this location and the inhabitants. I just started watching Luke Cage and I'm excited. The ultimate goal: The Punisher.


	4. Collapsing Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadine investigates a strange occurrence with her tow new acquaintances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEVER GIVE UP. NEVER SURRENDER. THY WILL BE DONE, THY KINGDOM COME. I will not give up on this story.

Clicking keys and busy street cars. An injured Nadine tried to make sense of the strange occurrences from the night before. Franklin Nelson— who asked her to call him Foggy— kept side-eyeing her suspiciously. She had dozed off for a few hours but was now wide awake despite only three hours of rest. Foggy had only gotten up from his desk for coffee refills so far, even-handed her one when she woke up. She cradled the piping hot bean juice against her covered stitches, the heat agitating the itch in her skin but she refused to put the cup down. The blond man shifted in his seat and pulled his tie a little looser around his throat.   
“So,” he tapped fingers against the desk, “my partner can’t be here for a few hours— he’s a lot better at this comforting stuff— but in the meantime, I can draw you up some protection orders and figuring out how to keep you safe.”  
“Your partner,” she sipped the black liquid, “he the one you’ve been texting all morning?”   
Foggy glanced at his phone and back to Nadine, more unnerved than before by her stoicism. She didn’t wait for him to answer, instead, she stood and crossed the office into the low budget reception room. As she reached for the door handle she was stopped by a newcomer’s entrance. Strawberry blonde tresses and flamingo pink lips framed startled bright eyes.   
“Karen Page,” Nadine held out her hand, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.”  
Ms. Page jerkily shook the woman’s hand, unsure of her and clearly burdened with something to say. She glanced quickly at Foggy and told him to grab his stuff and follow her. No matter how many times he asked her what was going on, Karen deflected his questions and continued to lead them across town. As the ragtag group walked down the street at City Hall, the damage was clear. Right across the street, it appeared as though a tall phone line spire had phased through a lot of buildings, spanning at least 70 feet, or through three small business stores. Police tape surrounded the entire area and police struggled to keep the fascinated public behind fences.   
“Look at this,” Karen waved her hand over the scene, “can you believe it? It just showed up overnight, nothing looks broken, it’s like it’s cemented into the bricks or something—Foggy we were just here yesterday!”  
“OK,” the nervous man shuffled his feet and looked like he was going to be sick, “no one’s been hurt, right?”  
“Nobody’s hurt, but some burglars were trapped in the basement.”   
With a hand on his chest, Foggy sighed so hard his cheeks bulged and deflated. That was until Nadine began to push through the crowd and approach the line. He spared a glance at Karen before they too fell in line, following her and struggling to keep sight of her. Once at the fence, where officers were flustered and arguing with a facetious blogger shoving his phone camera in their faces, Nadine shoved the man roughly to the side and flashed her SHIELD badge. The stout blonde waved her through whipping out her nightstick to threaten the blogger’s rambunctious friends.   
“Hey,” the officer stopped the trailing blonds until Nadine returned.   
“They’re with me.”   
Nadine moved swiftly through the scene, weaving around officers with cameras and a cop car with a few loitering ones. She walked straight to the building and touched the metal of the phased tower. Solid, a smooth metal alloy, a little rusted around the rivets but otherwise not unusual considering the circumstances. Dainty pink fingers brushed the metal too, tapping lightly as if slightly frightened by the strangeness. Karen looked to Nadine.   
“I know it sounds a bit redundant, but something totally strange is happening,” she commented, bewildered.   
Nadine just smiled in reply. She was too cute. “It’s warm.”  
The two women turned to Foggy, who was approaching from a jog around the building. “The structure. It’s like 40 degrees out and everything’s wet, but the metal is completely dry and warm.”  
Nadine pointed at him “nice observation,” and took a few high-resolution pictures from her phone.   
“What brand is that? I’ve never seen those before,” Karen said.   
“SHIELD only uses the best, and apparently the best is not American. It’s iFruit, a knockoff Wakandan original.”  
The two nodded with expressions reflective of not understanding despite the chosen movement. A light went off in Nadine’s head and she stepped closer conspiratorially to the group, and they followed her movements. “Who rules Wakanda?”   
“King T’Challa, what do you live under a rock,” Foggy asked.   
“No, this is completely wrong,” she said, covering her eyes as a lime color swam in her vision and seemed to rise like smoke from the metal she was holding. Smoke only she could see.   
“What—”  
“It’s supposed to be Shuri. T’Challa’s gone—how can he be King after what happened with Thanos?” Nadine’s heat began to pound, her legs giving out under her as the words 'who is Thanos' crossed over her panicked mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing the next chapter as I post this.


	5. Clear Water Runs Rough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen and Nadine discover they are not in Kansas anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey-o, I'm already writing the next chapter so enjoy.

The cold embrace of an icepack under her head was a welcome wake up call. Nadine’s eyes fluttered and closed again, she stifled the rhythm of her breathing and tried to emulate sleeping as she regained her bearings. She remembered the Nelson and Murdock sign, and Karen Page leading her to the site of a very unusual scene. A silver transmission tower had phased through several buildings in what she could only surmise as some kind of freak quantum coincidence. Only nothing in the universe happened by coincidence anymore. Lastly, she remembered the color green and hands holding her forearms as she collapsed.   
“Doctor Giuliani,” a voice called desperately, hands roughly shaking her by the shoulders to force her awake. Karen stood over her, somehow looking terrified and beyond pissed off simultaneously. They were inside somewhere—not the attorney’s office— but probably not inside those jacked up buildings either.   
“Where are we,” Nadine asked. Karen vigorously shook her head and returned to a nasty couch without cushions. The room looked like a one-bedroom apartment, and everything inside appeared to belong formally to a local dump.   
“I don’t know what happened,” Karen’s voice wobbled, and she pulled at her hair nervously. “One minute we were downtown, next thing I know we’re here in this dump. No phone tower. No Cops. No Foggy.”   
“Anything else I should know?”  
“I checked my phone’s GPS. The map looks like Manhattan, but it’s labelled Gotham.” Karen scrubbed her forehead as if to wipe the confusion from her thoughts. “What the hell is Gotham?”   
“I might have an answer for you, but I need your help first.” Nadine sat up with some difficulty and pulled the distressed woman out and into the streets for some coffee. For the next hour, the two sat and drank and argued over the relevancy of Nadine’s questions. When the coffee had their hearts beating twice as fast and their bodies stressed out to the point they move to an empty Irish pub. At this point, Karen looked as wrung out as Nadine felt, and the SHIELD agent tried to reassure her by putting her warm hands around the white woman’s, pressing them into the cool glass of her beer and caressing Karen’s palms until they relaxed their grip. “Thank you. Karen— thank you.”   
Nadine took a hefty swig of her mug to settle her nerves. “OK. Last night, I was working on assignment for SHIELD, involving the use of infinity stones—”  
“What the hell are infinity stones?”   
“—Powerful objects that allow users to control certain concepts in the universe,” she explained. “I started investigated what the organization called the time stone, and I must of fucked up somehow, because now I can move between different worlds, like yours and mine and… and this place.”   
“What do you mean worlds? Like planets?”   
“No,” Nadine whispered, “are you familiar with the multiverse theory?” By the look on her face as she pillowed her head in her arms, Nadine took that as a ‘yes.’ “You said where you’re from T’Challa is the King of Wakanda and you’ve never heard of Thanos or Gotham. Where I’m from, his sister Shuri succeeded him after that purple shit stain collected all of the infinity stones for the gauntlet and deleted half of the universe. Where I’m from, Gotham is the fictional playground of the vigilante Batman and the headquarters of the Justice League—they’re like the Avengers but, like, dark and dramatic.”   
“And now we’re in a comic book?” Karen’s voice was still muffled by the flesh of her arms. “How does that work?”   
“I…I have no fucking idea.” Nadine began pulling at her hair and hoping that by putting pain in her scalp, it might distract from the pressure of her swollen brain in her skull. She was distracted from her moping when she heard Karen sniffling. Her hands returned to Karen, setting them on top of the smooth skin of her crossed forearms, gently unravelling them and getting close enough to pull the other woman into an awkward but comforting hug. Nadine didn’t have to ask why she was crying, the thought hadn’t left her since she began to suspect the truth: if they were flitting through multiverses, how the fuck were they ever going to find their way home? Guilt blossomed in her chest where Karen’s tears were absorbed by Nadine’s sweater. The bartender and other workers were too busy debating if a mouse could kill a scorpion to notice them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My original intention was not to insight a romance between these two, but I just feel like Karen needs more love and appreciation. 
> 
> FYI if you didn't catch it, the mouse vs. scorpion debate is an "It's Always Sunny" reference because you know, why not?"


	6. Planets Align

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadine Giuliani and Karen Page have to find the Justice League, but how to get their attention?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had literally no idea how to move forward so finally I just WROTE and figured things out.

Gotham during the daylight hours looks even dirtier than Detroit did at night—or at any time for that matter. Gritty, soot black, filth from port to stern…  
“Just like in the comics,” Nadine squeaked. The women had looped arms to keep close. It was high noon, and the bustle of the streets yielded little attention to the out of time and place pair. They were in over their heads, unsure where they were or where they could go. Nadine’s first thought was to contact the Justice League. She did not let on to Karen that she actually had no way of knowing how to contact them or make them believe their story, but it was the closest thing to a plan that they had at the moment. After finding a quaint little coffee house and ordering food and drink to relieve the exhaustion of space/time travel, the SHIELD agent offered to protect Ms. Page only to be shown the nifty little peashooter she kept in her bag. “A llama III-A? Nice choice.”  
“I thought so,” Karen agreed.  
“Ever used it?” By the conflicted look on her face, Nadine assumed she had. Suddenly, they were distracted by the strange occurrence. It had been light out when they had gone into the coffee shop, they could only have been inside for 20 minutes at most, but stepping outside it was pitch black. Karen checked her phone to see the time: 9:13 PM. The coffee house was still open, the hours on the store stating it was supposed to close at 7 PM. Their heads were spinning trying to take in all the information at once. Instead of dwelling on the fact, they hooked arms and dragged one another down the street searching for a motel to rest in. Karen tried to keep up the conversation, a way of distracting herself from an inevitable mental breakdown.  
“It’s just a little thing I have for protection,” Karen defended, talking mostly nonsense and circling back to the earlier conversation. “You know how Hell’s Kitchen gets.”  
“I do. A little bit of advice…” The two had meant to pass by the dark alley— dark especially for late midday—but it seemed the lurkers inside had other plans. Nadine grasped Karen by the elbow quickly and dragged her behind her. Unfortunately, the four people in front of them were a distraction for two more to pick up the women from behind and bring them deeper into the alley. “…Gotham is worse.”  
A half a dozen hooligans saddled up in a full circle, each wielding odd, threatening weapons and wearing animal masks with sinister sneers. They looked almost cartoonish by nature, the same sleeveless denim vest and saggy pants, like a multi-ethnic, Canadian street gang in the eighties. Even without their faces visible, they looked very young. Between 15-25, maybe. The one in the lion mask— because of course that one—stepped forward flanked by an Elephant and a Bowling… Ball. Karen and Nadine exchanged ‘what the fuck’ glances and straightened out.  
“Hey fellas,” Nadine starting backing away to distance herself from the three closest thugs, Karen mimicking her steps. “Ain’t it past your bedtimes?”  
The young thugs laughed menacingly, maliciously. They moved forward and in sync, the circle growing smaller. They made no demands, spoke no words, made no monologues, just twirled their weapons and looked between one another. All of the thugs held short-range weapons, bats and scissors and nunchucks, so Nadine did not reach for her bra holster but unscrewed the rose textured cap from her defense ring. In a pinch, the ring worked like keys between fingers. Nadine had added a thin coating to the thimble-sized blade of fast-acting poison—for incapacitation purposes. Just enough time to drag a few of these fools down to the police station—and provide a cover story.  
The circle closed again, stepping forward in rhythm and now uncomfortably close. Karen released a furious yowl at being grabbed, whipping out her gun and breaking the circle as some of the thugs staggered. Then, Nadine struck. She jammed the prick ring into the neck of the Lion masked assailant, kick him hard in the top of his thigh so that he would be forced back.  
“Fuck,” he screamed, gripping his neck and his leg as he fell. His friends attacked, the Bowling Ball man swung his wood bat, missing Nadine by a mile as she sidestepped him. Ducking, she heard the ring of aluminum knock down the Elephant man. In the fireman carry, she lifted Bowling Ball and gave him a good toss, allowing him to land on the chest of his leader. Success, the Lion man had the wind knocked from his lung which assisted in his passing to beddy-bye time.  
Meanwhile, Karen had fired one warning shot and scared two of the thugs off—the Fox and the Flamingo who appeared to also be the token female of the group. Only the Rhino was unphased, charging her instead. The two tumbled to the uneven pavement but before he could throw a punch, Nadine had him in a full nelson chokehold. Karen, mouth pulled tight in a thin line, punched him square in the jaw. He groaned and cursed, his words slurring instantly as Nadine jammed the prick ring into his exposed neck rolls. A white-hot pain made Nadine scream. Karen kicked out to catch the attacking Bowling Ball man, catching him in the knees and giving Nadine time to pull the scissors from the back of her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around the Rhino and forced him to roll off of Karen to free her.  
Seeing the opening, Karen crawled to her feet quickly and picked up a discarded bat, wood this time and covered in protruding nails. She cracked the bat over Bowling Ball’s head, hitting him again and again until he stopped trying to fight back.  
The two women now stood over three bodies each suffering varying yet harrowing degrees of pain and consciousness. The nearby coffee shop, not the BuckStars from earlier but a dingy shop with broken windows, now had the thirteen patrons pouring out of the store, and one brave soul appeared to be dialing 9-1-1. Thinking quickly, Nadine intervened by flashing her SHIELD badge under the pretense of an off-duty cop.  
“No need to worry, sir, my partner and I have everything under control. Plase, return to your business. We will call it in and handle the mess,” Nadine called hands up and out to force the growing crowd back.  
Karen—the wise thing—caught on very quickly and pretended to send out a call. “HQ please be advised: lieutenant Giuliani and I have apprehended three of six assailants performing a 10-373 near the Lace Doily Coffee House on 6th and Broad street…”  
Nadine hailed a passing cab and forced the driver to stand on the curb while they packed the ‘suspects’ into the backseat and drove off, Karen driving.  
“I know we didn’t have much of a plan before we got jumped but this seems a little crazier than what we were anticipating,” Karen voiced her concern, keeping her hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel. Nadine was busy scrolling through Karen’s cellphone for the map app.  
“I know but don’t worry, I’m very flexible,” Nadine replied. “We’re driving to the nearest police station.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still trying to see where this story goes, we are in the same boat here, but I'm steering. BRING ON THE TORRENTS.


End file.
